Natal Daze

Dear Miss Arthur and I share the day.  She would have been 90; I, regrettably and somewhat amazingly, am something over half that, clinging for one more year to the 40s. She's a good role model, actually, having truly come into her own in the second half of her life (it's always somehow improbable, seeing pictures of her as a young actress).

After the age of 12 or so, we never did much birthdays at our house.  In all fairness, the parties from toddlerhood until just about then were of an almost Crawfordian lavishness, at least by the standards of small town Pennsylvania.  By 15, it was a cake at dinner and a new book, with perhaps a little something tucked into a Hallmark from one or another of the great aunts.  It was a surprise to go off to college and see how much other people made of them, and I'm still startled at times when people remember mine (thanks, MJ!), or, for that matter, when people take it as a matter of course that that their celebrations are obligatory and obligatorily grand in scale.

So we're celebrating quietly enough (brunch deluxe over the weekend), which seems right.  It's an awkward age.  We'll save the fireworks for 90.  Perhaps even then I'll think of Beatrice Arthur; equally likely, I will have confused her with one of the great aunts.  In a way, she rather was...